Santan Dal's guru Balak Brahmachari finally cremated after 55 days

Finally going gently into that good nightTo die is human - it took 55 days and 450 policemen to drill this simple truth into

Finally going gently into that good night

To die is human - it took 55 days and 450 policemen to drill this simple truth into the minds of the members of the Santan Dal.

After they had stubbornly refused to cremate their guru, Balak Brahmachari, insisting that he would emerge from his "meditative trance", the police managed to retrieve his body from the ashram following a pitched battle last fortnight.

For the residents of Sukchar, a middle class neighbourhood on the banks of the Hooghly, where the ashram is located, it was the end of an ordeal. Though the Brahmachari died in a south Calcutta clinic on May 5, the Santan Dal ignored two cremation notices from the municipality and pleas by the Government and local residents that his decomposing body could be a health hazard.

The police entered the ashram at 2 a.m. on June 30. Four hours of skirmishes with the 2,000 odd Santans holed up inside the ashram followed before the police could get to the second floor where the Brahmachari's body lay on ice, rotting and smelling.

Says Haider Aziz Safwi, IG (south Bengal), who led the operation: "The orders were to use minimum force." The only victim was the North Parganas SP, Rachhpal Singh, who was speared by a trident-wielding Santan. The sect's General Secretary Chitta Sikdar was arrested along with 827 other members.

The police have sealed the ashram and are probing its affairs. A few bombs were found in the ashram and there are charges of land-grabbing against the sect. The controversy, unlike the Brahmachari, shows no signs of dying.

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